Orange Walk Man Killed While Intervening in Domestic Dispute

Marcelino Chan

A man in the north was stabbed and killed by his cousin over the weekend. Police are still looking for the killer and the family of the deceased believes that he may have crossed the border either in the north or west. The fifty-three-year-old father of eleven children tried to intervene in a domestic dispute, but he ended up getting killed on Saturday night. Another man tried to prevent the murder and was also injured in the fight. News Five’s Andrea Polanco was in San Roman in the north and has the story.

Andrea Polanco, Reporting

Fifty-three-year-old Marcelino Chan was stabbed and killed on Saturday night here in San Roman Village in the Orange Walk District. Around eight-thirty, Chan was walking on his way home when he encountered a domestic dispute at this residence. A man identified as Mario Aguirre Junior was allegedly physically abusing his wife – the man is Chan’s cousin – so Chan attempted to try and stop the fight between the couple. Chan’s family was at a function when they got the news of his stabbing. His two young daughters would later find him covered in blood and dying.

Voice of: Lydia Chan, Daughter of Murder Victim

“When he was coming back home, he met the girl who is the daughter of the police – and her husband was beating her and so since he is my father’s cousin , my father got between them. They said that the man got very angry and he ran back inside his home– at this time my father was coming back from a wedding with his food and he said I am going to calm down my cousin and when he said ‘cousin, calm down’ and without even thinking the man stabbed him, they said. He stabbed him in his heart and his neck; like five times they said. They told my mother that they stabbed my father – she was at the wedding. But my mother didn’t think that they stabbed him to kill him – she thought that they stabbed him just in his hand or so and they told her no – that he was stabbed in the heart. My two little sisters were heading home and they came across him – they had him sitting up – he was covered in blood and he was giving his last breaths when the two of them saw him. He died there – right there.”

Chan was stabbed and cut at least four times – to the chest and the neck area with a kitchen knife. Another man witnessed the incident and when he tried to defend Chan, he too was attacked by Aguirre. According to Chan’s family – Aguirre is known to them as an easy going person. They are unsure if the men were under the influence.

Voice of: Lydia Chan

“Yeah there were people there who witnessed it. There was a guy who tried to defend my father and he was stabbed too in his hand. Aldair Carillo – he too was a victim because when the guy stabbed my father he went to defend him and the knife fell afterwards and the guy – Carillo – was looking for it to hide it and so luckily the knife stayed behind and they took it to the police. The guy doesn’t drink; doesn’t smoke – this guy doesn’t even go out nor does he fight out in the street. He doesn’t go looking for trouble and so we have no idea why he got into it with my father stabbing him. Well, the truth is we don’t know if our father was drinking or if he was drunk – we don’t know.”

Chan was taken to Orange Walk Hospital but died there a short while later. Today, his daughter says that what hurt them the most is that her father was well known in the village and was easy going and to be killed by his cousin is just not the way they thought his life would end.

Voice of: Lydia Chan

“My mom is very hurt – in pain. She never expected this would have happened to my father. No one expected it. It is a shock. We saw him good and healthy just that day before he was killed. We don’t know how we will move forward because right now we are hurting. Nobody thought that he would be killed like this. We never imagined this pain that it would cause us.”

Reporting for News Five, I’m Andrea Polanco.

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